The benefit of an automated workflow system is the minimization of deviations and fluctuations in processes of the workflow, and maximization of the use of resources. Printing is a highly customized manufacturing activity and automation has not come easy. Prepress was the first segment of conventional print production to be computerized, and scripting languages and ‘hot folder’ techniques have been employed to route files from one process to the next. Consoles for controlling on-press color balance and registration came next, followed by computer-to-plate and direct imaging presses. Overall, however, efforts at end-to-end automation are ongoing.
Although the particulars differ, the workflow challenges facing all printing professionals are similar, and they emanate from a combination of market forces, and both internal and external equipment and process incompatibilities, including:
Ever shortening run lengths and turnaround requirements;
Manual intervention in production and administrative processes;
Discreet, process and application specific workflows; and
Limited interoperability between equipment and software components
Color digital front ends (DFEs) and other prepress interfaces, including print-shop or web-based systems, provide users with numerous controls for manipulating color and image quality for a printing job being submitted. Often, however, default values for these controls are determined by someone other than the user, yet the settings attempt to provide a reasonable balance of image quality and performance for the majority of expected input. Unfortunately, the default values frequently reflect casual user priorities, where performance is more important than image quality. Consequently, the default values may not produce optimal image quality for many print workflows and many do not produce acceptable image quality for a user's particular workflow(s).
Not only is it the above situation a problem with prepress settings, but it is also true that some problems in rendering high quality printed output originate with the files received by print shops. Moreover, the file problems can, in some cases, be further traced back to poor selections the user made when printing a document from the source application.
As automated prepress systems become more feature-rich and increasingly prevalent in various types of print shops, there is a greater need to ensure that individual process node job parameters are optimized, and remain consistent with each other. Currently, the person setting up the automated workflows must ensure that all parameters in all process nodes (e.g., services) are consistent with each other. Should there be a change in one of the processing parameters (e.g. a print node is changed to use a different printer model), then the operator must ensure that all process nodes that take into account the printer modes (e.g. proofing, preview, color management, etc.) are updated to reflect the new printer model in the print node. The manual synchronization of job parameters that are dependent on each other becomes an increasing source of errors as more and more capabilities are added to automated prepress systems.
A known practice by some is to provide user documentation—Hints and Tips (e.g., recommended settings for their equipment on their web sites)—advising users on the preferred settings to achieve optimal image quality. Other print shops actually distribute creative application (e.g. Quark Xpress) “Printer Styles” to their customers. Print shops with more established customer relationships may even go so far as using systems like Creo Synapse to enforce the use of “printer styles.” The distribution, adoption, and retention of such tools and information is, unfortunately, not widespread. If a user adopts certain recommendations, they can save the preferred settings in a job ticket, or equivalent job programming acceleration mechanisms such as queue or virtual overrides, but they need to remember, at a later time, to use the specific ticket for the selected printer.
In spite of the availability of such information, it is believed that many print shop customers are simply not going to avail themselves of the tools and information mentioned above when creating print files for submission of their print jobs to the print shops. In response to the noted difficulties, the systems and methods disclosed herein provide users of print job programming software applications with an additional set(s) or collection(s) of pre-set or default values that will vary based on at least the printer configuration. Specifically the initial color and image quality settings would be determined as a function of the printer selection and applied upon request of the user.
In one embodiment, the color and image quality settings would be packaged as a persistent data structure, so the user could further customize the settings and revisions could be delivered and installed easily. In this context, the key aspects of the printer configuration are the print station model and the DFE software release (includes vendor, base release, patches, etc.). The following disclosure further contemplates a system and mechanism for extending current printing functionality to automatically configure applications with recommended print settings for a specific type of printing. More specifically, automatically evaluating document characteristics in a source application and pre-configuring a postscript printer description (PPD) file(s) selection, operating system print driver selections and application print selections to a set of optimal print settings based on the type of printer selected by the end user.
As a further enhancement, the following disclosure teaches the use of parameters in automated workflows wherein certain parameter values can be derived from the value of other parameters. In other words, when selecting certain parameters, the user would have the option to specify that the value for a parameter should be dynamically derived from another parameter value in the workflow (generally from a different operation in the workflow). When the user selects a dynamic value for a specific workflow parameter then the system will dynamically adjust the value of that parameter based on the value of the source parameter in the workflow.
Disclosed in embodiments herein is a method for defining a print job, comprising: providing a collection of printing parameters, wherein the collection includes a plurality of selectable values as a default for at least one printing parameter; recording a user's selection of one of the plurality of selectable default values in association with a persistent data structure; and submitting the user's selection for printing in association with a print job.
Embodiments described herein also disclose a method for controlling the execution of a print job, comprising: providing a plurality of services related to printing of the print job for incorporation into the print job workflow; displaying, via a user interface, a plurality of parameters that control the workflow and the plurality of services in order to obtain printed output as desired by a user; and selecting at least one parameter for control of at least one of the plurality of services, wherein said selected parameter is derived from at least one other parameter specifying the workflow.
Further disclosed in embodiments herein is a method for improving output quality on a digital printing device, comprising: providing a collection of printing parameters for use by the digital printing device, wherein the collection includes a plurality of selectable values as a default for at least one parameter; recording a user's selection of one of the plurality of selectable values in association with a persistent data structure; and submitting the user's selection for printing by the digital printing device in association with a print job.
Also disclosed in embodiments herein is a print management system for managing print services, comprising: a processor that controls the print services according to a print instruction including a request to produce printed matter; an acquiring unit that acquires unique data indicative of characteristics of a print service and associates the characteristics with a persistent data structure that can be interpreted by the processor; a client terminal for generation of the print instruction, the instruction being described in the persistent data structure that can be interpreted by the processor and is based on the unique data indicative of characteristics of the print service; and an output unit for generating a printed output in response to the print instruction.